Mount Rushmore: America Carved In Granite

August 18, 1985|By Karen Zautyk, New York Daily News

On certain days at the change of seasons, weather in the Black Hills of South Dakota can be a whimsical thing. A morning of slashing rain gives way suddenly to sunshine -- and again, just as suddenly, to hail and fog and sun again. And as the weather changes, so does ''The Mountain.''

It can be misty gray or brilliant white. Clouds close in briefly and then part like veils. Sometimes, when the rain stains the stone, you'll hear a visitor say: ''Doesn't it look as if they're crying?''

Gutzon Borglum would have smiled. Imagination, said the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, was his most important tool.

It took hundreds of workers, about a million Depression-era dollars and 14 years to create the memorial -- but most of all, it took imagination. Borglum's work was to place the faces of four presidents on a mountaintop. Four faces, eyes forever on a far horizon, carved in granite by the hand and mind and heart of a fellow visionary.

George Washington symbolizes the founding of our nation; Thomas Jefferson represents the spirit of independence and self-government; Abraham Lincoln preserved the Union and stands for freedom for all; Teddy Roosevelt, was the ''friend of the common man'' and carried forth the dreams of the other three. Poor Teddy. He was the most controversial of the choices, and a lot of people still challenge his inclusion in the glorified company. The challenge is made stronger when you learn that Borglum was an active campaigner for the Bull Moose Party.

Never mind. In terms of art, and Rushmore is a work of art, the Roosevelt sculpture is also thought to be the best of the four.

How did the memorial come about? In 1923, South Dakota historian Doane Robinson proposed carving the Black Hills' needle-like rock formations into Western figures -- cowboys and Indians and the like. To survey the plan, he selected Idaho-born Borglum, who had studied with Auguste Rodin (''The Thinker'') in Paris and had learned the basics of monumental sculpture at the Stone Mountain, Ga., Confederate memorial.

Borglum nixed the needles, saying they would look like a lot of totem poles. Besides, this son of immigrants had a grander scheme; he wanted something that would speak to and of all America, not a single region.

The Rushmore project was approved and was begun with private funding. The federal government agreed to help with matching grants and ended up footing most of the bill. Work started in 1927, when Borglum was 60, and ended in 1941, a few months after his death at age 73.

The sculptor worked aloft and in a studio at the base of the mountain, where he placed scale models, calculated measurements, observed the effects of the sunlight and directed workers on the face of the cliff. (Jefferson was initially begun to the left of Washington, but the workers hit bad rock. He developed a sloping forehead and was destroyed.)

Borglum chose Rushmore not only for the quality of its stone but for the southern exposure, knowing that the changing light would give life to his work. All day long, the expressions change, partly because of the natural play of sun and shadow, partly because of calculation: Granite shafts are embedded in the eyes to reflect the rays.

Though the project was massive, the work was intricate. The rock (450,000 tons of it) was blasted away to within four inches of what would be each face. It was then honeycombed with drill holes, chipped off and chiseled. Finally, an air hammer was used to smooth and whiten the stone.

There has been little deterioration, though natural cracks in the granite do reappear. A National Park Service ranger gives annual facelifts, filling in small fissures with a mixture of linseed oil, granite dust and white lead, and removing tiny patches of lichen.

According to geological studies, granite erodes about an inch every 1,500 years. At that rate, the faces could be there for a few millennia.

Borglum was sure they would be there and worried that far-future generations would wonder who these four men were, as mystified by them as we are by the Easter Island statues. (A lot of people were mystified when Rushmore was a work-in-progress: Many thought the long-haired individual, Jefferson, next to George was Martha Washington.)

Borglum designed a ''Hall of Records,'' which would be tunneled into the the cliff near the summit and house both a history of the carvings and copies of important American documents. The public would have access via a mammoth staircase. The repository was begun, but only the portals and a short portion of tunnel were completed.

His plans included carving the figures nearly to the waist and placing an inscription down the side of the mountain.

When Borglum died, the project was taken over by his son, Lincoln, who declared it finished six months later. As it was, he felt, the monument said everything his father had wanted it to say.

The subjects were chosen for what they symbolize as individuals and as part of our history.

The work itself, in its size and scope and in its fulfillment of a vision, symbolizes something else.

Faced with innumerable obstacles, not the least of which were the naysayers, Borglum once declared: ''Don't say, 'I can't.' The 'I can'ts' are unknown in the world's work and unremembered in history.''

More than 2 million people a year come to this place, just to stand and stare at a mountain. Even when the observation deck is crowded, there's a stillness, for many visitors speak in whispers. Some are moved to tears.